If the Gordon book is what I'm thinking it is (small, dark blue cover),
it basically assumes that you know a Scandinavian language already. The
dictionary/glossary in the back only gives one tense of verbs, and only
proper nouns, and also doesn't include words that haven't changed since
those days. So, yes, studying a modern Scandinavian would be helpful.
Especially Icelandic, as I hear it's not much different from the OI. I
studied Swedish myself, thinking that the ON references would be more
helpful to understanding the old ways.

S

Justin Farwell wrote:

>
> hey man! history! way to go!
>
> well, if you've taken Latin, at least you are aware of noun
> declensions, which is always confusing to new folk (although the form
> of Latin noun declensions wont help you much with Old Norse).
>
> first of all, the standard intro that universities use is Gordon's
> "Introduction to Old Norse" and many other Old Norse books resemble
> it; its basically a selection of readings followed by a grammar
> followed by a glossary. unfortunately you are not going to find any
> textbooks that are chapter-by-chapter easy grammar lessons; though you
> can probably find a lot of such things online:
> http://www3.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
>
> here's a smaller, classic textbook, Sweet's "Old Icelandic Primer"
> http://books.google.com/books?id=hWoJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PP9&dq=old+icelandic+primer#PPP5,M1
> , the dictionary (a HUGE dictionary)
> http://books.google.com/books?id=RnEJAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=icelandic+dictionary
> and a site with lots of Old Norse texts:
> http://www.heimskringla.no/original/index.php
>
> you could also consider learning modern Icelandic first; Old Norse and
> Old Icelandic are pretty much synonymous, and Old Norse/Icelandic
> grammar is almost EXACTLY the same as modern Icelandic, and of course
> about 80% of the mundane vocab is the same (except for poetic words,
> obviously). you could try Einarsson Icelandic
> http://www.amazon.com/Icelandic-Grammar-Glossary-Stefan-Einarsson/dp/0801863570/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226861263&sr=8-3
> or Colloquial Icelandic (less authoritative and professional, but
> slightly easier to use):
> http://www.amazon.com/Colloquial-Icelandic-Complete-Course-Beginners/dp/041542707X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226861263&sr=8-2
>
> another thought: Old Norse/Icelandic is probably the toughest of the
> historical germanic languages (though it also has the biggest corpus);
> have you considered starting with Old english? old english grammar is
> a good bit easier, the vocab is even more familiar as it is the root
> of English, and there are A LOT more learning resources out there for
> Old English.
>
> final thought: learn German! naturally, German is related to modern
> and Old Icelandic since it is also a Germanic language, but also most
> of the most important grammars and studies on historical Germanic
> stuff are written in German
>
> lots of luck mate! -Justin
>
> --- On *Sun, 11/16/08, orkboyz4000 /<orkboyz4000@...>/* wrote:
>
> From: orkboyz4000 <orkboyz4000@...>
> Subject: [norse_course] On Getting Started
> To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Sunday, November 16, 2008, 7:44 AM
>
> Hello,
> I am an undergraduate history student. I have a great love for
> Norse mythology and would very much like to focus on the study of
> these myths as a means of better understanding Norse culture.
> Unfortunately my only experience with other languages have been
> Spanish (at the Intermediate level) and Latin (at something of a
> Beginner level). How hard do you think it will be for me to learn old
> Norse? Also, are there any resources that you may recommend for me to
> attempt to familiarize myself with the subject and possibly better
> prepare myself for study of the Norse at the graduate level? Thank you
> for your help.
>
> Manuel
>
>
>